Innocent Until Proven Guilty
by Prosper-the-XVIII
Summary: Formerly titled Don't Let Me Get Me. Casualty and James Bond crossover. Somewhere between Skyfall and QoS, M has a slight accident semi-caused by her Chief of Staff. After she's admitted to Holby City Hospital, things begin to get rather awkward when Tanner starts blaming himself. Meanwhile, an unlikely bond begins to form between M and Jamie... Tanner/M Jamie/M friendship.
1. Prologue

**What I think an episode of Casualty featuring our favourite head of MI6 would work out like. RebaForever15, this one's for you. I must say, one eposiode of Casualty and I was absolutely hooked :) I have to admit I have totally fallen in love with Jamie and Dr. Hanna in particular. But I can't write without M, so here it is. Enjoy! **

**Title: Don't Let Me Get Me  
Summary: Casualty and James Bond crossover. Somewhere between Skyfall and QoS, M has a slight accident semi-caused by her Chief of Staff. Then things begin to get rather awkward when Tanner starts blaming himself. Meanwhile, an unlikely bond begins to form between M and Jamie... Tanner/M Jamie/M friendship.**

* * *

"Mallory, I know, but-...I've told you before you can go and stick this 'voluntary retirement' thing up your fat arse...This has been explained once and I don't intend to have to go through it again! I know I'm getting on, so to say, but I'll be damned if I leave the department in worse shape than I found it..." M's high heels tapped against the concrete of the steps down into the Tube station as she barked furiously into her mobile phone, becoming increasingly more and more annoyed with Mallory by the second. She had stormed out of work in a foul temper as he had once again picked up the argument that painfully tried and failed to convince her out of MI6, and had now deemed it important enough to call her as she left the building. She had been ranting at him for a good part of twenty minutes and she really was about ready to throw her phone into the fountain in Trafalgar Square if it meant she didn't have to put up with this any longer.

Just as she sighed with irritation whilst Mallory began speaking again, she heard something crash behind her, followed by something clipping the back of her patent Gucci stilettos. Still swallowed up and dwarfed by the late night rush hour, she threw her phone down, obviously stopping Mallory's spiel abruptly as two hundred pounds worth of iPhone 4S smashed irripareably off of the ground, and flailed in the crowd for the metal banister as her shoe heel snapped off. Missing completely, she helplessly pitched legs-first down the stone steps, the sea of people splitting yet no-one bothering to help. Finally, after what could only have been thirty seconds but felt like hours, she crashed to the floor.

Blood dripped down from a graze in her temple as she lay curled into herself. She could tell that she had injured her leg, and badly as she couldn't get back up, though hoped to God that it wasn't broken as was her worst fear, and she couldn't do more with her right hand than curl her fingers a little, so a high possibility was a fractured wrist. When she attempted to breathe and her chest contracted, her battered ribs cried out in agony and the wind had been compeletly knocked out of her. Now that she was lying injured in what could be described only as a very sorry state indeed, it seemed to have occurred to people that she certainly wasn't okay, and though most just walked by with little more than a concerned glance a few gathered around her, asking whether or not she was okay and dragging out mobiles to phone an ambulance.

* * *

Tanner had to admit, he had panicked. It wasn't his fault that a pidgeon had decided to try and crap on him, so he had attempted to step out of the way and had slipped in the process. As he had grabbed hold of something to avoid falling headlong, it wasn't his fault that he had careened into the white-haired woman in front of him barking into a mobile phone. And though when she had landed, he had been fully prepared to check if she was okay. But as soon as he had noticed who it was, he couldn't.

M. He honestly couldn't believe that thanks to him M was lying bloody and battered at the bottom of the steps in a Tube station. Though it had been a total accident, it all suddenly felt like his fault entirely. Hoping that she hadn't seen him, he upped his pace just as he heard a woman standing by a groaning, semi-conscious M say to her; "Don't worry, love, the ambulance is on it's way..."

TO BE CONTINUED...

* * *

**Well? The Casualty characters will come into this in the next chappie, I promise :)**


	2. No Apparent Reason

**Okay, this is really short. I just decided to slot this in; I thought I should write what actually happened at the scene...**

* * *

"Can we have a bit of breathing space please?" Dixie shouldered past the small throng of people gathered around the form of the semi-conscious woman they had been called out about. "Hello? Hi, can you hear me?" The woman nodded slowly, groaning; Dixie noticed the cut in her eyebrow and x-amount of other facial grazes that were seeping blood down her face. "Right, sweetheart, what's your name?"

"...Evelyn..." She mumbled slowly, one hand gently clasping her chest, the other seemingly useless at her side.

"Right, Evelyn, my name's Dixie; I'm a paramedic. We're gonna get you sorted out in no time, don't you worry. I need you to answer a few questions for me-"

"I'm fine...really..." The woman groaned again.

"Don't move please; we don't want you any more bashed up than you are already. Can you feel your arms and legs at all?"

She twitched her fingers slightly, the movement clearly causing her a lot of discomfort. "My foot..." she stammered. It was only then that Dixie noticed the odd angle at which her leg was bent.

"Right, Jeff," Dixie called behind her to her male counterpart. "Could you get a couple of boards - arm and leg - and a collar for me?"

"Yes milady," Jeff grinned stupidly before turning and making his way back to the ambulance out on the street.

"Okay, love, we're gonna get you to hospital real soon, okay?"

* * *

"Her name's Evelyn; didn't manage to get her surname or age, but she's about late sixties to early seventies. According to witnesses, someone behind her clipped the back of her ankle and sent her falling down the steps in a Tube station," Dixie rang off in her usual journey-to-Resus monotone; Jeff maneuvering the gurney down the corridor with her; Robyn, Aoife and Jamie speed-walking by their side. "Not KO at the scene; she's suffering from fractured left leg - tib and fib - and possible fractured wrist as well as a deep facial laceration that might require stitches. Complaining of dull chest pain and obviously quite disorientated, presumably as a result of concussion; she's going to need x-rays and possibly a scan to make sure that bash to the head didn't do anything long-lasting or serious," as they reached their destination, the five of them grabbed the side of the stretcher. "On my count; three, two, one, LIFT! No obvious respiratory problems; she's on five morphine, and I think I'll leave the rest to you lot."

As Dixie and Jeff turned and left, Ash and Linda stormed the scene, Ash in a plastic apron, glasses and a mask and Linda cringing, her shirt caked in blood-laced vomit.

"What the hell are you doing wandering about covered in puke?" Robyn sniggered slightly.

"Guys, this isn't funny. We've just had about four people in from a car accident; one in cardiac arrest and someone else vomiting blood. Aoife, come with me; Jamie - go get Zoe to deal with her," he gestured to M. "And Robyn; stay there until Jamie gets back.

* * *

"Is there any medical reason why she's still clogging up Recus?" Lloyd glowered at Robyn, who was still standing by M.

"Well, we're not allowed to deal with her - in case you haven't realized we're not qualified - so you'll just have to live until Jamie gets back with Zoe."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	3. Head of MI6 in Holby

**Reba, I'm so glad you like it :) As for the thing about M... Well, for some reason I find the human anatomy absolutely fascinating and I kind of use my writing as an excuse to research it without looking strange. It's just weird how it's always my favorite characters put on the receiving end of these 'experiments' - I've done the same to Rizzo, Nymphadora Tonks, Ruffnut from How to Train Your Dragon and The Hunger Games's Effie Trinket too. Oh, spoilers for last night's episode of Casualty. Right, on with the update!**

* * *

"Zoe, you're needed," the dark brunette turned round from her coffee and conversation with Noel to find student nurse Jamie behind her, grimacing sympathetically at tearing her off of her break, which were generally few and far between owing to the fact that they did work in Accident and Emergency.  
"God, what now?"  
"We just got this through from Dixie; she was called out to a station somewhere about half an hour ago and she's just arrived back. We're looking at a woman about mid sixties; she fell down the steps in a Tube station; broken tibia, possible fractured wrist, large gash to her face, possible concussion, complaining of pain in her ribs, though apparently to start with she was trying to say that she was fine."  
"Oh, God, she's one of those ones?" Zoe scowled, abandoning her five minutes of freedom and following Jamie off down a corridor mid-conversation. "The 'I'm absolutely fine; I can't bloody stand and everything hurts like shit, but I'm okay' kind? Hell, this is going to be impossible!"  
"Zoe, shut up!" Jamie barked at her as he turned a corner, Zoe not paying attention and having to double back. "Look, you can't just draw to conclusions about people before you've even seen them, especially not when you do what you do. It's stupid!"  
"Oh, says the kid who uses chocolate as a bribe to someone admitted with sickness and diarrhea!"  
Jamie cringed at the memory as the two stopped outside a cubicle with the curtains drawn. "Tom told you about that?"  
Zoe made a two-fingered gesture to the back of her, indicating that she had eves in the back of her head. "I know everything. You do realize that one more stupid cock-up like that's gonna have you out on your head?"  
"I've been chewed out already, I don't need anyone else getting on at me. It was a stupid mistake, don't tell me that you don't make them."  
Zoe's face hardened. "Jamie, stupid mistakes can cost lives. You're bloody lucky that that kid didn't die."  
"It was renal failure, chocolate wouldn't have influenced it-"

"You two, if you're quite finished," the two looked round from arguing to find that Dixie had been standing behind them the entire time and had witnessed the whole thing. "You do have a job to be doing."  
"Oh, em..." Zoe grimaced nervously, looking away, not wishing to demean herself any further. It was oddly Jamie who managed to recompose faster and stay professional.  
"Oh, sorry. Is-"  
"Yep, she's behind there. Her name's Evelyn Cameron by the way. She's going to need x-rays and her face needs cleaned up a bit, but other than that, for what's happened to her she's reasonably okay. Unfortunately for everyone she's been conscious the entire time. She's trying to hide it, but I can tell she's in considerable pain, so I would try not to be too brash with her," Dixie shot a warning glare at Zoe before turning on her heel. Zoe didn't seem to have taken a single thing in; she was still standing red-faced staring at the ceiling. Ignoring the fact that the slightly more qualified of the pair of them was seemingly on another planet, Jamie parted the curtain and walked in.

The woman lying in the bed inside the cubicle most certainly didn't look happy to be there. She was dressed in a businesslike charcoal grey suit, one foot clad in a black stiletto high heel, the other twisted at a slight angle and strapped up, propped on a pillow. Her right arm was in a sling and one side of her face was visibly grazed and swollen, her white pixie coiffure slightly red and sticky with blood in places. She sighed as she saw Jamie walking in, leaning her head back and wincing in pain slightly.  
"Erm...hi. Are you Evelyn?"  
"Yes," she sighed through her teeth as she sat up again.  
"Right, my name's Jamie, I'm a student nurse. How do you feel?"  
"Shitty," she said flatly, dabbing at her face tentatively and grimacing when her good hand came back bloody. "Look, this isn't something that I would usually say, but please tell me that the doctor's going to be here soon."  
"She was right behind me a minute ago...ZOE!" Jamie stuck his head round the curtain to find Zoe still staring into space in the corridor. "Zoe, wake up!"

"Oh, sorry," she followed Jamie. "Hello, I'm Dr Hanna. Sorry we had to leave you sitting for so long, it's just been a bit busy lately; I was having to deal with a kid who'd gotten a spoon stuck up his nose a minute ago. Does it hurt badly?"  
"I've been better," she muttered, not seeming to be making eye contact with Zoe.  
"Right, don't want to keep you hanging around any longer. If it's okay with you, we'll get you through for X-rays just to make sure there's no implications and if everything's okay, we'll get you plastered up."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	4. Anarchy and Plaster Casts

**This is probably not going to be much more than six chapters, just a heads up. So, we've had the first encounter, now let's see what M's injuries really are and how Tanner faces up to having caused this.**

* * *

"Right, all I'm doing is locally anesthetizing your leg just to dull the pain a bit when we have to set it," Jamie stood beside M, attempting to talk and tear open a sterile needle at the same time, almost stabbing himself with it in the process. "When it goes in you should feel a sharp scratch, then just numbness. I mean, normally with the amount it's twisted round we'd knock you out completely, but after that bash to the head, having that much drug in your system really won't be helpful in the slightest. Does your arm feel okay? Well, in a loose sense of the phrase anyway."  
"I think we'll call it tolerable agony for now," M half-laughed, though this quickly turned into a groan as the needle went down into the side of her ankle. "God! Was that meant to hurt that much?  
"Probably, yes. I don't think that'll go down deep enough to stop the pain completely, but it should make it a bit easier for you."  
"Thanks, Jamie," M couldn't help but smile at him. "You know, you really are a veritable saint. I know you're just doing your job, but you treat me like a real person capable of thinking for herself, not like a senile idiot or like I'm made of china like almost everyone else I've come across here." Jamie blushed a little before noticing Dr Hanna and a couple of other nurses approaching and deciding to make himself scarce.

Well, he thought, at least I can do one thing without making a complete idiot of myself.

* * *

"Right, we've completely analyzed your x-rays and drawn to the conclusion that you're suffering from a severely broken tibia, which judging by the nature of the break has happened before, am I right?" M nodded as she lay back waiting for the plaster swathing her right arm and left leg to set. Dr Hanna continued speaking. "And there's a hairline fracture to your wrist. Contrary to we had feared, you haven't cracked your skull and aren't concussed at all, so that's the good news. As you know we've managed to get away with just casting your broken limbs; you won't require surgery which is kind of a bonus as well. There's nothing that should take more than two months to heal, though you'll be hobbling about on crutches for a bit. As soon as this has all hardened completely we're going to move you onto a ward and we're thinking that it may be a good idea to put that leg of yours in traction just to make sure it heals up completely straight. We're going to keep you in for a week or two on observation, then as soon as you're up and around you can go home. But you're not to work at all until the plaster's off and it may be an idea to have someone at home to look after you. Do you have a husband?"  
"No," M sighed as a veil of sadness obscured her stoic expression. "He passed away about a year ago."  
"Oh," Dr Hanna gave her a sympathetic grimace. "I'm sorry, it wasn't my business."

* * *

_MI6, the next day..._

"Eve, do you know where M is?" Q Branch intern Rachael Ronson staggered up the stairs to M's office, most of the redheaded seventeen year old obscured by blueprints, printed sheets and instruction manuals, a coffee mug, Toshiba laptop with a sticker reading 'WARNING! NOT DISHWASHER SAFE!' on the back and a coin-shaped object balanced haphazardly on the top of the lot of it. "Only I've got all the prototypes and stuff for that grenade she wanted and there's no way I'm dragging this lot back downstairs with no avail."  
"Nope, sorry Rachael. Haven't seen her all day; no-one has, which isn't like her. We haven't received any notifications as to where she is or why she's there, so Q's been earning his keep doing a bit of research on that front."  
"God, something must really be wrong then if she hasn't shown all day and no-one knows why. Thanks anyway."

* * *

"Three hours of watching CCTV footage later and I've worked out what's happened to M," Q muttered as he stared at his laptop, Eve, Tanner and Mallory crowded around him.  
"What?" Mallory asked tentatively.  
"It was Colonel Mustard with the revolver in the drawing room," Q smiled cockily, frankly quite impressed for coming up with that line.  
"Q, this isn't a good time for your crappy attempts at humor," Tanner glowered at him slightly.  
"God, who peed in your cornflakes?" Eve elbowed him in the ribs. "You've been a complete moody git all day."  
"Children, please," Q put on a Mary Poppins type voice and snapped the two of them out of it. "Well, this was from about nine o'clock last night at the central Tube station. It looks like M fell down the steps or something, then a load of people crowd her and you kind of lose her from there. She must be pretty badly hurt if she's missing."  
"Well, she is the one who came in a day after being shot in the thigh when we were on the Quantum case," Tanner pointed out. Mallory appeared to have noticed something.  
"Q, go back about a minute..." the young whippet of a Quartermaster did as he was asked, and Mallory pointed out a face in the crowd, the one belonging to the guy who had tripped and collided with M, causing her to fall headlong. "Was that...Tanner?"

TO BE CONTINUED...


	5. Idiotic Fears

**Now: Tanner loses it somewhat, the news about M becomes (semi) public and 'The Evil Queen of Numbers' gets an unexpected visit (my OC). And As Time Goes By's Penny gets a cameo here as well :)**

* * *

_MI6_

"Bill?" Eve looked at him tentatively, chewing her bottom lip and putting her hand on his shoulder. He flinched away, a somewhat guilty expression prominent across his features. "What is it?"  
"I should have told you lot sooner instead of having you all crapping yourselves over M. It was my fault. Last night, when I was going for my train home... I think M must've been getting the Tube for once as well, because... I slipped a little trying to avoid being covered in pigeon shite, she was in front of me and I must have clipped her heel when I saved myself, because her shoe broke and she fell. I had no idea it was her; I was going to check if she was okay, but then when I noticed who it was I chickened out," he was staring at the floor, cringing with embarrassment.  
"Great, now we know. But seriously, Bill, next time do you mind telling us all that you've put M in hospital before I spend six hours trying to work out where the hell she is and not after?" Q said, accompanied by an eye roll, though this earned him a painful elbow in the ribs from Eve.  
"Q, seriously, that wasn't needed. Do you think we'd still be allowed to go and see her?" Eve asked with her inquisitive smile.  
"To be honest, I'm not even too sure where she was taken to," Tanner muttered, still rather embarrassed. "I didn't stay long enough to check -" It was at that point that Q's email inbox pinged. A click on the NEW MAIL button, Q skim-read the email, which had apparently also been sent to Eve, Mallory and Tanner among others.  
"Right, it's from her GP I think. It's basically outlining details of the accident and then...aha! Okay, she's been taken to Holby City Hospital - wherever the hell that is - with a gash in her face, hairline fracture to her right wrist and severely broken left tibia. God, Bill you must've knocked her pretty hard -OW!" Eve slugged him across the shoulder at that. "Anyway, she's expected to be in plaster for about eight weeks and she's not to come in for that entire time, and unfortunately that leaves Mallory in charge - oh, sorry, forgot you were there. Then there's a load of crap about pay entitlements or something and... It details visiting hours down there. And if we get our asses in gear, we should be able to go and see her."

"I've got work I'm supposed to be doing," Mallory was first off the mark to make an excuse.  
"I don't suppose that seeing your ugly mug's going to put her or anyone in a very good mood anyway," Q quipped as the Intelligence Chairman walked out of Q's office and peeled off in the direction of his own. "Well, I'm going. Eve? Bill?"  
"Coming," Eve gathered her jacket under her arm and half-ran after Q as quickly as her three-inch wedges would allow her to. She doubled back when she noticed Bill still standing lamely in the middle of the room. "What's up?"  
"Nothing, but if I show, I'll end up apologizing non-stop and I'm not sure if she even knows that I was the one that knocked her in the first place, so that would be shooting myself in the foot big-style. And if she does know, then she'll absolutely bloody hate me, I just know it. I mean, I've stuffed up with her enough times that she could probably have me sacked, but this takes the bloody cake."  
"Bill, don't panic, she's not as heartless as you lot seem to think-"  
"And how would you know that?"  
Eve sighed. "You really aren't painting yourself into a very good light here. Bill, I know far more about her than you give me credit for. Look, she'll be fine about it; she bounces back quite quickly with this kind of thing, and even if she won't speak to you... Well, it'd be bloody childish to start with, but she wouldn't hate you, she'd hate what you did. Look, are you coming or not? It'd be better to get it out of the way rather than spending the rest of your life pussyfooting around the whole thing."  
"Point taken, but I'll give it a miss."  
"Oh god, what now?"  
"I'm scared of hospitals."  
Eve walked out at this, laughing. "Good god, how old are you?"

* * *

As Mallory had probably lied through his teeth to avoid having an unneeded encounter with M and Tanner had panicked, Eve and Q were the only ones all but getting hopelessly lost in the corridors of the hospital, Eve carrying the bunch of white roses that she had bought out of M&S en route, Q hunched slightly with his hands in his pockets, shuddering every so often. Eve seemed to pick up on this.  
"Q?"  
"What?"  
She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Are you okay?" He automatically shrugged her off, glaring.  
"Fine," he sighed through his nose, taking off his glasses and cleaning them on his shirt; Eve had over time picked up that this was more of a nervous habit than something he did out of need to see. "Actually, not so fine. Look, the reason I was getting snippy with Bill earlier was because M... Laugh if you want, but M's actually my mother. If you want to know how I got this job so young and why she never gets pissed off with me the way she does with you lot, there you go. Anyway, she used to be an agent, and I can't stand being here because of the amount of times that I saw her in hospital... the number of times I almost saw her die, for that matter. It's just gotten me scared of it over time." Q scowled, annoyed with himself yet worrying on the inside. "I mean, understandably I can't stand seeing her in pain, so that's in a nutshell why I'm practically crapping myself. Wait, haven't we just walked straight past her room?"  
"Well done, Q."

* * *

"All I can say is thank god you two turned up because I've been here for all of a day and a bit and I've been bored to tears the whole time," M was sitting up in bed, the cut on her face dressed, her leg propped up on a couple of pillows and arms folded in her lap, alone in a ward meant for four save for one bed with the curtains closed around it. "I thought about calling my daughter Summer and asking her to pick some stuff up from my apartment, but I smashed my phone when I fell, so... Besides, the woman across there - I think her name's Penny or something like that - I've tried to have a conversation with her once or twice, but she's an absolute idiot; she's in for minor surgery or something like that but she's bloody convinced she's dying. Some people really are mad," Eve sat down beside M's bedside, laughing through her nose, Q still standing rather limply, totally silent.  
"So, how do you feel?" Eve enquired, putting the flowers down on M's bedside table.  
"Pretty awful, but it's getting better. I'm a bit pissed off at almost everyone here because they seem to think that, because I'm over sixty, I'm going to be away with the fairies, but I can probably get over that. Anything happened that I should know about?"  
"Well, I spent three hours trying to work out what the hell happened to you, then found the email that told us that exactly, so I'm not too happy, but it's not been too great without you. Plus we're stuck with Mallory in charge." Q half-muttered, only just audible and still staring at his shoes.  
"Perhaps not the most intelligent thing you've ever done. Is it just you two?"  
"Well, I think that aside from Bond - on a mission - and Tanner - stupid phobia of hospitals - I think we're the only people you've let get close enough to you to care."  
"And to think that most of you were calling me 'The Evil Queen of Numbers' when I was promoted."

TO BE CONTINUED...


End file.
